On November 19, a 48-hour cessation of hostilities agreement came into effect. While the agreement reduced conflict in some parts of Yemen, fighting and airstrikes largely continued, and on November 21, the agreement lapsed without renewal. The UN, U.S. Government (USG), and other stakeholders continue consultations with Al Houthi representatives, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)-led Coalition, and Republic of Yemen Government (RoYG) officials aimed at establishing a sustained cessation of hostilities.

The UN released the 2017 Yemen Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) on November 23. The HNO identifies 18.8 million people in need of humanitarian support countrywide, including 10.3 million people that require immediate life-saving assistance. Although the people in need figure represents a reduction from the 21.2 million people identified in 2016, the UN notes that the decrease is due to targeted prioritization and not an improvement in humanitarian conditions, which have further deteriorated.

As of December 8, the RoYG Ministry of Public Health and Population (MoPHP) had reported 8,975 suspected cholera cases and 89 cholera-associated deaths across 13 governorates and the capital city of Sana’a. A RoYG MoPHP-led Cholera Task Force, which includes USG partners, continues to conduct health and water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions in cholera-affected and at-risk areas.

On November 28, Al Houthi leadership and allied groups announced the formation of a new government, rejected as illegitimate by the RoYG. In a November 29 statement, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed characterized the development as an obstacle to the peace process and urged all parties to refrain from unilateral actions outside of UN-sponsored negotiations.

Children and youth are on the move, fleeing conflict, persecution, and other situations of violence, poverty, natural disaster and environmental degradation. As a protection and displacement organisation working in 40 countries, DRC encounters children on the move in areas of origin, transit and destination, including in Yemen, Libya, Turkey, and Greece.

Sana’a, December 8, 2016 – The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has allocated a total of $58 million through the Humanitarian Pooled Fund for life-saving activities across Yemen.

With a staggering 18.8 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, including 10.3 million in acute need, the people of Yemen continue to suffer as a result of 19 months of conflict. More than three million people have been displaced and basic service provision is collapsing. Only 45 per cent of health facilities are currently functioning, and hunger is gripping over 14 million people, half of whom do not know where their next meal will come from. Malnutrition has soared by over 60 percent since late 2015, affecting over three million people, including 460,000 severely malnourished children under five.

The Humanitarian Pooled Fund will help address this devastating situation through the financing of 31 projects in the sectors of nutrition, food, water, sanitation, and health targeting a total of 3 million people. The projects target the most vulnerable people in need of assistance in 15 priority governorates across the country, including under-served governorates such as Shabwah, Dhamar,
Al-Jawf and Marib.

Nine national NGOs ($7 million), fifteen international NGOs ($28 million) and six UN agencies ($23 million) will implement the projects. In line with OCHA’s commitments to the outcomes of the World Humanitarian Summit, nine local responders are being supported through direct funding and a total of $3.8 million will be sub-granted to 28 national NGOs. Trainings and other capacity building are included in the support to national NGOs.

This substantial allocation was made possible by generous contributions from Canada, Ireland,
Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom to the Yemen Humanitarian Pooled Fund.

More resources are, however, urgently needed to respond to the huge scale of humanitarian need.
The 2016 Yemen Humanitarian Response Plan is currently only 58 per cent funded.

Global agricultural prospects are improving but lean seasons loom in near future

8 December 2016, Rome - Civil conflict and weather-related shocks have severely stressed food security in 2016, increasing the number of countries in need of food assistance, according to a FAO report. The new edition of the Crop Prospects and Food Situation report, released today, highlights 39 countries that are in need of external assistance for food.

While the outlook for global cereal supplies is improving due to generally favourable growing conditions for crops, the legacy of recent droughts persists, as do the negative effects of a spate of conflicts.

Agricultural forecasts suggest robust grain harvests are on the horizon, but hunger will likely intensify in some regions during the lean seasons before the new crops have matured.

In Southern Africa, where El Niño effects sharply curtailed food production in 2016, the number of people requiring outside assistance from January through March 2017 is expected to significantly increase compared to the same period a year ago. Child stunting rates are "significantly high" in the most troubled areas, notably Madagascar, Malawi and Mozambique, the report notes.

In some regions, inadequate stocks of cereal and legume seeds due to two consecutive poor harvests may limit plantings. FAO and governments are implementing agricultural support programmes to improve access to key farming inputs.

Conflicts cast a long shadow on food security

To facilitate humanitarian response planning, the report identifies the primary causes of local food crises. These range from exceptional shortfall in food production and widespread lack of access - due to low incomes, high prices or disrupted distribution networks - to the impact of conflicts on local food security conditions.

Civil conflicts and their consequences, including refugee movements that are burdening host countries such as Cameroon and Chad, are cited in 21 of the 39 countries. Widespread conflict can lead to the loss and depletion of households' productive assets, as in Central African Republic, and to security concerns that hinder farming activities, as in South Sudan.

In parts of South Sudan, improved harvests are likely to have only a short-lived effect as ongoing conflict has reduced the ability to engage in agriculture, posing extra risks for the most vulnerable communities.

Continuing civil conflict in Syria has led to 9.4 million people requiring food assistance. This year's wheat production is estimated to be around 55 percent below its pre-crisis level. The ongoing conflict in Yemen has likely increased the number of food-insecure people from the 14.2 million people assessed in June, the report said. The recent escalation of conflict in Iraq is triggering a widespread internal displacement. Acute food insecurity affects more than 8 million people in Afghanistan and their numbers are likely to increase with the return of around 600,000 refugees from Pakistan before the end of 2016.

The number of food insecure people in Nigeria is above 8 million and is projected to increase to 11 million by August 2017. The ongoing conflict in northern states curtailed plantings, while the sharp depreciation of the Naira currency has raised domestic food prices and affected regional trade as more Nigerian cereals are exported while fewer livestock are imported.

Agricultural trends appear poised to improve after rough 2016

Droughts and weather effects linked to El Niño triggered significant crop shortfalls in 2016 in several countries. Africa's aggregate cereal production declined in 2016 despite some sub-regional gains, notably in West Africa and the Sahel region, which is on track for a record cereal production. Maize output in Southern Africa decreased sharply, severely stressing food security conditions.

Poor harvests triggered sharply higher prices for staple maize in Malawi, where 6.5 million people are expected to be food insecure during the upcoming lean period. On a positive note, with El Niño over, preliminary estimates point to a 27 percent increase in maize plantings for South Africa's 2017 crop, by far the region's largest producer.

While much of Asia benefited from robust food production in 2016, led by a sharp recovery in India, the impact of long-running conflicts in several Near Eastern countries continues to severely depress agricultural production despite generally beneficial weather conditions for staple grain crops.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, expectations of a production rebound in Central America in 2016 are welcome, following the drought-affected outputs in the previous year, while the 2017 planting season in South America is off to a favourable start after a reduced 2016 crop mostly due to droughts in Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay.

(Beirut) – The Saudi Arabia-led coalition killed several dozen civilians in three apparently unlawful airstrikes in September and October 2016, Human Rights Watch said today. The coalition’s use of United States-supplied weapons in two of the strikes, including a bomb delivered to Saudi Arabia well into the conflict, puts the US at risk of complicity in unlawful attacks.

The attacks underscore the urgent need for foreign governments to suspend all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and for the United Nations human rights office to send additional investigators to Yemen to carry out credible investigations of alleged abuses by the coalition, the Houthis and their allies, and all other parties to the conflict, Human Rights Watch said.

“Saudi-led forces are bombing civilians in Yemen with newly supplied US weapons,” said Priyanka Motaparthy, senior emergencies researcher at Human Rights Watch. “The Obama administration is running out of time to completely suspend US arms sales to Saudi Arabia or be forever linked to Yemen wartime atrocities.”

Human Rights Watch located remnants of US-made weapons at the site of coalition airstrikes in Arhab in Sanaa governorate and in the Hodeida governorate. A September 10 attack on a drilling site for water in Arhab killed at least 31 civilians, including three children.

Human Rights Watch researchers found remnants of two US-made GBU-12 Paveway II laser guided 500-pound bombs. One Paveway II laser guidance system had markings indicating it was manufactured by Raytheon, Inc., a US arms manufacturer, dated October 2015 – seven months after the start of the war. The other weapon was manufactured at an undetermined date in 2015. By October 2015, the UN as well as Human Rights Watch and others had already reported numerous unlawful attacks by coalition forces.

A coalition airstrike on October 29 struck the al-Zaydiya security administration building north of the city of Hodeida. Many of the about 100 people who were being detained in the facility died in the bombing. The Houthis and allied forces stationed military personnel and trucks mounted with machine guns at the site.

But even if a strike was on a military target, it may have unlawfully caused disproportionate civilian casualties. Human Rights Watch researchers found remnants consistent with a US-made JDAM satellite-guided bomb at the site.

A coalition airstrike on Souq al-Hinood, a densely populated neighborhood in Hodeida, on September 21 killed at least 28 civilians, including eight children, and wounded 32 others. The only known military target in the vicinity was the city’s Presidential Palace, about 450 to 500 meters away, which was bombed earlier that day.

Between March 2015 and October 2016, at least 4,125 civilians were killed and 7,207 wounded in Yemen, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the majority by coalition airstrikes. OHCHR reported in August that airstrikes had been the “single largest cause of casualties” over the past year. The Houthis and their allies, including forces loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, have also committed numerous serious abuses.

The Saudi-led coalition has repeatedly used US-produced weapons in unlawful attacks. US-produced weapons were used in two of the war’s deadliest incidents so far: the March 15 attack on Mastaba market, which killed at least 97 civilians, and the October 8 attack on a funeral hall in Sanaa, the capital, which killed at least 100 people and wounded more than 500. Both attacks appear to have been war crimes.

The continued transfer of arms by the United States to Saudi Arabia, despite evidence of their repeated use in unlawful attacks, may make the US complicit in some of the coalition’s violations in Yemen. The US is also party to the conflict in Yemen, providing targeting intelligence and refueling planes during bombing raids, but the US has not announced any independent investigation into its actions in the Yemen war. According to a Reuters investigation, US officials debated internally whether US support to the coalition could make US personnel criminally liable for war crimes in Yemen.

In May, the US suspended transfers of cluster munitions to Saudi Arabia. However, President Barack Obama, before he leaves office, should halt all arms transfers to Saudi Arabia and make the cluster munition ban permanent and extend it to all other countries, Human Rights Watch said.

Immediately following the October 8 funeral hall attack, the US National Security Council announced the US had “initiated an immediate review of our already significantly reduced support” to the coalition and was “prepared to adjust our support.” The US has made no further announcements regarding how it planned to alter support for the war in Yemen nor released any findings from the review. President Obama should ensure that the review examines whether US forces participated in any unlawful coalition attacks in Yemen, and release the review findings before leaving office, Human Rights Watch said.

The government of the United Kingdom also sells arms to Saudi Arabia, despite growing parliamentary pressure over its support for Saudi Arabia’s military campaign in Yemen and evidence of the use of British-made weapons in Yemen. Human Rights Watch has documented the use of UK-made weapons in three apparently unlawful coalition attacks in Yemen. Since March 2015, the UK has approved £3.3 billion in military sales to Saudi Arabia, according to the London-based Campaign Against Arms Trade.

On November 15, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office concluded, despite considerable evidence to the contrary, that there was no clear risk of serious Saudi breaches of international humanitarian law in Yemen. The ministry had previously issued six corrections to statements, walking back its initial denial of coalition laws-of-war violations in Yemen. But it noted that, “UK Defence personnel are unable to form a complete understanding of the coalition’s regard for international humanitarian law in Yemen as they do not have access to all the information required to do so.”

Neither the Saudi-led coalition’s Joint Investigation Assessment Team (JIAT) nor the Yemeni-led National Commission has announced investigations into the three airstrikes. JIAT, after releasing initial investigation results into eight airstrikes on August 4 that largely absolved the coalition of responsibility, has only published initial results of one additional investigation, the October 8 funeral hall airstrike, after the strike received widespread international condemnation. JIAT’s published investigations have failed to meet international standards for credible and transparent investigations into laws of war violations, Human Rights Watch said.

In September, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution mandating the UN human rights office to deploy additional human rights experts to investigate abuses by all sides, and report publicly on its findings. These three attacks highlight the need for the warring parties and concerned governments to fully support the office’s expanded investigative mandate, Human Rights Watch said.

“Governments selling weapons to Saudi Arabia cannot with any credibility rely on either coalition or Yemeni-led investigations to determine whether these weapons are being used against civilians,” Motaparthy said. “The US, UK, and others selling weapons to Saudi Arabia should suspend these sales until unlawful attacks are curtailed and properly investigated.”

Measuring safe migration for children: The experience
from the UNICEF response to the refugee and migrant
crisis in Europe
Tsvetomira Bidart, UNICEF Regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe
and the Commonwealth of Independent States

Yemen’s population is at risk of catastrophic hunger as food imports continue to plunge and on current trends the war torn country will effectively run out of things to eat in a few months, Oxfam warned today.

The international agency said that in August, the amount of food imported into Yemen fell below half the level needed to feed the country’s people and remained below that ever since.

A 20 month long war, waged between a Saudi-led coalition of Gulf countries and the Government of Yemen against the Houthis, has killed and injured over 11,000 civilians, forced more than 3 million people to flee their homes and brought the economy to near collapse.

Oxfam is calling on the Saudi-led coalition to lift shipping restrictions to allow food and other vital imports to increase, and on all parties in the conflict to allow food to move freely around the country and agree a meaningful ceasefire and restart peace talks. It is also calling for rich countries to increase support to the UN aid effort which is currently only 58 per cent funded and short of over $686 million (£540m).

Mark Goldring, Oxfam GB Chief Executive, said:

“Yemen is being slowly starved to death. First there were restrictions on imports - including much need food - when this was partially eased the cranes in the ports were bombed, then the warehouses, then the roads and the bridges. This is not by accident - it is systematic.

“The country’s economy, its institutions, its ability to feed and care for its people are all on the brink of collapse.

“There is still time to pull it back before we see chronic hunger becoming widespread starvation. The fighting needs to stop and the ports should be fully opened to vital supplies of food, fuel and medicine. As one of the principle backers of this brutal war Britain needs to end its arms sales and military support to the Saudis and help put Yemen on the road to peace.”

Even before the conflict started, nearly 90 per cent of Yemen’s food had to be imported. With the country’s agriculture hit by the fighting, that reliance on food imports has only increased. However restrictions on shipping which are punishing the Yemeni population and the destruction of many port facilities by the Saudi-led coalition means that meeting the country’s food needs has reached a critical juncture.

In November 2015 the country was importing just over what it required, by October this year that had plunged to 40 per cent of its needs. Without a massive increase in food imports this trend is likely to continue in which case, by April next year there will virtually be no food imports.

Reduced ability of ports to handle cargo means ships have a lengthy wait at anchorage before they can berth to off-load their cargo. In November average delays at ports in the north-west were considerable - 53 days in Saleef and 23 days for Hodeidah.

There is some smuggling of food on the black market across the land border between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. This is an important source of food but not on a scale to resolve the hunger crisis.

According to the UN, malnutrition is on the increase and more than 14 million people - half the country’s population - are ‘food insecure’, without a reliable source of enough food. The World Food Programme is warning that the numbers may rise to 21 million people.

People are doubly hit with food prices increasing – cereal prices are over 50 per cent of pre-crisis levels - and income falling. Some 31 per cent of the work force are civil servants and have not been paid or have received irregular payments in recent months. The most vulnerable of the population, 1.5 million people, who had relied on welfare payments, have received no payments since the crisis started over a year ago.

Besides a food import crisis there is also a fuel import crisis. Yemen used to be a fuel exporter but the conflict has effectively shut down production though recently there has a slight resurgence of oil production in the southern port of Aden. The country is now dependent on fuel imports and is only importing a quarter of what it needs.

Once food is in the country there is a challenge to distribute it to where it is needed, not only due to fuel shortage but because bridges on vital trade routes have been deliberated bombed. Fuel is also essential to pump water, run hospitals, light homes and keep Yemen’s ailing economy from collapsing completely.

Food imports to Yemen against pre-crisis levels of 2013. Food imports are tracked by the World Food Programme. Since May 2016 UNVIM (the United Nation’s shipping and import verification department) has also been tracking imports.

The situation in Yemen has deteriorated significantly since March 2015, with a dramatic escalation of violence and armed conflict, further compounding the already precarious humanitarian situation. OCHA estimates that as many as 18,8 people are in need of some kind of humanitarian or protection assistance, including 10,3 million who are in acute need1 . The scale of the needs and the scope of the emergency response have required a large, multi-agency and multi-sector response to be undertaken.

With the rapid deterioration of the security situation across the country, the increase of humanitarian needs, the dire economic crisis and the limited infrastructure available, additional logistical support is required to ensure humanitarian organisations responding to the crisis can deliver efficient and effective assistance to the people affected.

The Logistics Cluster will facilitate access to common logistics services (temporary storage; air, sea and overland transport; fuel distribution), as well as assuming a coordination and information management role to maximise the use of available resources in-country, and avoid duplication of efforts.

Logistics Gaps and Bottlenecks

The major constraints on the ability of humanitarian organisations to respond to the crisis in Yemen are: the lack of access due to insecurity, a rapidly changing security situation, and limited or much damaged infrastructure.
Specifically, the following logistics gaps have been identified:

Congestion at main entry points (POD – port of discharge);

Unreliable and unpredictable access to sufficient quantities of fuel, as well as high volatility in its price;

Limited international shipping options to Yemen, especially by air;

Limited in-country storage capacity;

Poor overland transport capacity from neighbouring countries.

Objectives

Based on the needs expressed and identified by the humanitarian community, and in close alignment with the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), the Logistics Cluster aims to facilitate access to sufficient and reliable logistics services and operationally relevant information, to ensure a timely and uninterrupted supply of life-saving relief items to affected populations.

655,314 Syrians registered with UNHCR in Jordan, accounting for 7 per cent of the national population

60,647 Iraqis registered with UNHCR in Jordan, over a third of whom are children.

2 Jordan hosts the second highest number (87) of refugees per 1,000 inhabitants in the world

6 Jordan represents the sixth highest refugee-hosting country in the world

93 Percentage of Syrians living outside of camps and below the poverty line in Jordan

US $ 214 million Provided since 2012 in cash assistance by UNHCR to Jordan’s most vulnerable refugees

FUNDING

US $ 318 million requested for the Jordan Operation in 2016

HIGHLIGHTS

On 22 November several UN agencies, including UNHCR, resumed the provision of life-saving humanitarian aid to an estimated 85,000 Syrians stranded on the Jordan-Syria border. Humanitarian assistance was last delivered to the population in a one-month supply of rations in early August after a deadly attack in Jordan’s north-east district in June.

UNHCR in Jordan’s largest winter response yet began in November expecting to reach 323,000 of the most vulnerable refugees across the Kingdom, or 40 per cent of the total refugee population. The last few winters in Jordan have seen snow storms sweep the country with high winds, freezing rain and blizzards forcing the closure of schools and roads.

A major advance in how UNHCR Jordan identifies persons living with disabilities was achieved in November, which is expected to allow a more effective response to the specific needs of refugees with disabilities. For the first time the “Washington Group” set of questions are being incorporated into refugee registration interviews countrywide and vulnerability assessments conducted on refugee home visits.

UPDATE ON ACHIEVEMENTS

Operational Context

The month of November marks the beginning of UNHCR’s yearly four-month response to protect refugees from the cold weather in Jordan, where the approaching winter looks to be the bleakest yet for the Kingdom’s 726,000 registered refugees, as well as for those living on its borders.

Meanwhile, UNHCR continues its search for durable solutions for displaced people in Jordan to help them rebuild their lives in dignity and peace. UNHCR Jordan is now the largest resettlement operation in the world with 24,000 vulnerable refugees submitted for resettlement by UNHCR in Jordan in 2015, and a further 30,000 in 2016 by the end of November.

The operation is also continuing the search for livelihood opportunities for people who are awaiting durable solutions in order to decrease dependency and increase self-reliance for people of concern and host communities. This includes facilitating refugees’ access to employment. Since November 2015, 33,800 Syrians have obtained valid work permits as the result of the Government of Jordan granting them free of charge to registered refugees as a result of advocacy by UNHCR and some of its key partners.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), through its offices in Yemen, Djibouti and Ethiopia is assisting vulnerable and stranded Ethiopian migrants to voluntarily return to their country of origin. Since the conflict broke out in Yemen in March 2015, IOM has been providing this assistance to nearly 10,000 Ethiopian migrants.

Ethiopian irregular migrants are caught in deplorable conditions due to the ongoing conflict. IOM, together with the international community, has been engaged in life-saving operations targeting thousands of stranded Ethiopians that prioritize the most vulnerable, including children, women, the elderly and medical cases.

IOM’s support includes medical screening, facilitation of nationality verification, transportation, and specialized support for vulnerable groups.

As part of its ongoing evacuation assistance, in November 2016, IOM evacuated 150 Ethiopians from Yemen, and also assisted the return of 166 Ethiopians who been deported from Yemen and were stranded in Djibouti. All return assistance provided by IOM to these stranded Ethiopians was on a voluntary basis only, as part of its Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) program.

IOM prioritizes the needs of migrants and the return support is centered on the principle of consent, voluntariness, and best interest of returnees.

Between June and September 2016, over 17,000 people in 16 countries were asked to share their views on a range of issues relating to war – in the People on War survey. The results are both reassuring and alarming.

We asked people living in countries affected by armed conflict if they believe the rules of war matter. They do. Over two thirds of people living in these countries as well as those from countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council and Switzerland think it makes sense to impose limits on how they are fought. Almost half of those surveyed in conflict-affected countries believe the Geneva Conventions prevent wars from getting worse. But we also see that people are becoming resigned to the death of civilians as an inevitable part of war.

There is a disconnect between public opinion and the policies and actions of States and armed groups. Violations of the laws of war – including the targeting of civilians, humanitarian workers and hospitals – continue. Yet the survey results clearly show that the majority of people understand that these practices are wrong and that civilians and health-care workers and facilities must be protected.